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EHAM QTH QRZ ARRL HRO ICOM KENWOOD YAESU 6PM 145.130 THURSDAY EDITION: Microsoft wants small nuclear reactors to power its AI and cloud computing services... Step back in time: Living history drill brings WWII era to life at Battleship Memorial Park
MOBILE, Ala. (WPMI) — Take part and see history come to life at Battleship Memorial Park on Saturday, October 7, 2023 from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at our Living History Crew Drill. Attendees who dress in 1940s/WWII attire will receive 50% off one adult admission ticket. The Blue Anchor Belles will be performing 1940s and 1950s classics from 11:45 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. on the bow of the USS ALABAMA. Immediately following their performance, “Call to Battle Stations” will be sounded at 1:00 p.m. on the bow of the USS ALABAMA. Due to mechanical issues, the planes will not be flying. However, spectators will still get to see the reenactors fire the 20mm guns and hold demonstrations for the crowd. Throughout the day, visitors will get to interact with historical WWII reenactors aboard the USS ALABAMA and the USS DRUM. These crewmen, dressed in WWII period Navy uniforms, hold demonstrations, conduct weapons briefings, and share stories told to them by our original crewmen. The Deep South Amateur Radio Club will be broadcasting from Radio Central aboard the USS ALABAMA during the drill and welcome visitors to come and listen. For all ham radio operators, the call letters are K4DSR and K5LDA broadcasting between 20 and 40. The drill is open to the public and included with general admission. Battleship Memorial Park is open from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with the last ticket sold at 4:00 p.m. For more information, please visit our Facebook page at USS ALABAMA Battleship Memorial Park or call Ashleigh Milne at 251-327-8750. WEDNESDAY EDITION: A rare sunny day here on the isle of Cape Ann, almost as rare as BC winning a football game....Today's Dumbass.... NASA Looks Ahead to October’s Annular Solar EclipseThe Oct. 14 annular eclipse will occur as the moon will be at its furthest point from Earth while it comes between our planet and the Sun A partial eclipse that will be visible over parts of the United States in mid-October could offer NASA a rare chance to study the Sun’s effects on the Earth. The Oct. 14 annular eclipse will occur as the moon will be at its furthest point from Earth while it comes between our planet and its star. Because of that distance, the Sun won’t be totally blotted out, but will rather appear as a fiery ring around the moon. The eclipse will be visible to some degree across the contiguous United States but the full effect will only be visible for a narrow swatch cutting through Oregon to Texas. NASA will broadcast the eclipse live on its website. The Sun being blocked presents an opportunity to learn more about how the star affects the Earth’s ionosphere and gravity, as well as temperature. Three rockets will be launched into suborbital flight from New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range which will measure electrical and magnetic fields as well as particle distribution in the atmosphere. The agency will also launch sensor-laden balloons in every state to try and pick up some of that data. “You're trying to really quantify the relationship between that radiation that's coming in, and how the ionosphere must be responding to that,” said NASA heliophysics program scientist Madhulika Guhathakurta. “This allows us to really understand that impact of solar radiation.” Some of the experiments involve recruiting civilians: A contest run by HAMSci, a group of scientifically minded ham-radio operators, will help gather data on how the eclipse will affect radio waves traveling through the Earth’s atmosphere. “We have lots of satellites, but currently these observations are unattainable from any other labs or space,” said Guhathakurta. The agency is also hoping to gain precious data from the Eclipse Soundscapes Project, a citizen science initiative aimed at recreating a 100-year-old study on how eclipses affect wildlife. Peg Luce, acting division director of NASA’s Heliophysics department, said the eclipse will kick off the “heliophysics big year,” culminating on Christmas Eve, when the agency’s Parker Solar Probe will make its closest approach to the Sun. There is a chance that NASA will be among the government agencies affected by a possible government shutdown, but a spokesperson for the agency said it was too soon to speculate on what that shutdown would mean for eclipse experiments. The Marconi Men and the Sinking of the LusitaniaAt the mouth of the River Mersey, on England's Northwest Coast, is a town of 60,000 by the name of Wallasey. Wallasey is part of the historic county of Cheshire, a region that has been the home of fishermen and those who love the sea for hundreds of years. Wallasey was also the home of Robbie Leith, an early Amateur Radio operator and commercial radio man for the Marconi International Marine Communication Company. Above a fireplace in a cottage home in Wallasey hangs a silver-plated key. It's not a morse code key. Instead, it's an antique that has been a Leith family heirloom for more than 100 years. That key once unlocked the Marconi Room on the huge passenger ocean liner, the Lusitania. This week in Trials and Errors, I’ll share what I’ve read about the history of this disastrous sailing, and about how two radio men put their lives at risk to do what they could to save passengers and crew. The Beginnings of American Involvement in WWI The sinking of the Lusitania, one of the most horrific incidents at sea during early WWI, proved to be a key reason behind America entering the war. In early 1915, the German government had declared to the world that all Allied ships would be targets of German U-boats if they were in British waters. Despite this, the Lusitania sailed from New York on May 1st of 1915 with 1962 people on board. Just a few days later (May 7) the ship was near the town of Kinsale on Ireland's Southern coast when it was torpedoed at 2:10PM by the German submarine U-20. The sinking of Lusitania had huge repercussions for the world. The ship sank in under twenty minutes with the loss of nearly 1200 lives. More than 400 crew members, most of them based out of Liverpool, England, perished that day. Close to 200 Americans were on board and 128 lost their lives. Robbie Leath, the lead Marconi Man on the voyage, left David McCormick (Assistant Radio Operator) in charge of the equipment at 2PM and went down to the second class dining hall to get a late lunch. As he sat down, a bit too late for a full meal, a kind waiter found him a bowl of soup and put it down in front of him. It wasn't the first time that he'd missed a meal due to his duties in the Lusitania's Marconi room. Robbie lived and breathed radio and had been a wireless enthusiast as a boy. On the ship, it was up to Robbie and David to ensure that everything regarding the still relatively new "at sea" technology worked flawlessly. Up until May 7th, most of the work had been decoding telegraph messages sent by the British admiralty concerning the known locations of German U-boats for the Captain of the Lusitania, William Thomas Turner, to take note of. There were also lots of messages coming in for the elite, First Class passengers -- like Mr. Vanderbilt who was on board. However, the radio men were forbidden to send code back out as it might give away their location to the Germans (even though Robbie was a master at the telegraph key).
Barely a sip or two of soup had passed his lips when an explosion rocked the dining hall, followed by a second and even more dramatic detonation. As the ship quickly took a list to one side, Robbie took the stairs to the radio room at a breakneck pace. He was almost knocked off the stairway by a mother with her two small children, and although not a word passed between them, their faces were etched in Robbie's memory. (Years later, Leith's memoirs speak of the effect on him to see their bodies in the morgue.) Moving quickly past the wires and antennas that emanated out of the Marconi room, he saw that McCormick had already engaged the motor powering the transmitter. The assistant operator had not yet sent a message, so Robbie slid into his chair, grabbed his telegraph key, and sent their first message since the voyage began: Come at once, big list, 10 miles south Old Head Kinsale As the two radio men looked at their equipment, their eyes were fixed on the ammeter needle on the front panel of their transmitter. It was wavering. Robbie knew that he had but a moment or two before they would lose power. While David began the process of readying the emergency batteries, Robbie keyed one last message -- this time a bit more urgently: Send Help Quickly. Am Listing Badly! It isn't clear in the historical records who was the first to respond to the Lusitania's SOS, but it was later determined that the two Marconi men were heros. The ship was substantially under water at the time they made their historic connection, and both men waited until the very last moment in order to ensure their message was received. One passenger later reported how surprised he was to see the Marconi room still occupied as the ship was clearly only moments from sinking. When the radio operators saw that passenger at their doorway, they slid him the wooden radio shack chair and suggested that he use it as a flotation device. No thoughts at all about their own safety -- in fact, David McCormick pulled out a camera and took a photo of the deck being completely level with the ocean surface. After the two Marconi men knew their messages had been received, they parted company; each found his own way off the boat in the very last moments. Robbie spotted a small, partially submerged boat that had been tied to the sinking ship, and he lept in to help get the craft released from the sinking Lusitania. David decided to go down with the ship, literally. He entered the whirlpool of suction at the surface, only to pop up again like a cork and get rescued by a fishing trawler. Later, the Captain of that trawler noted that his ship reached the exact location of the Lusitania only because of the transmissions sent by the two Marconi men who had risked their lives to get that message out. On the German U-Boat, U-20 Visibility was poor the morning of May 7th. The submarine U-20 was low on fuel and had only three torpedoes left. Captain Walther Schwieger decided not to take the submarine into the Irish Sea and decided to begin their way home. The submarine submerged at 11:00 AM. after sighting a fishing vessel that Schwieger believed might be a British patrol boat. However, just after 1:20 PM, the chief engine room officer spotted the Lusitania on the horizon, a rich target for the U-20.
Seeing the opportunity, Schwieger brought U-20 into position. At a 700-meter range, Schwieger ordered one gyroscopic torpedo to be fired, running at a depth of about ten feet. His first orders to fire on the Lusitania were refused by officer Charles Voegele, an Alsatian. He would not fire on a passenger ship (he was subsequently court-martialed). Still, another officer took the order and fired the torpedo at Lusitania. Schwieger was shocked at the secondary explosion which even rocked the sub. The torpedo had been a direct hit on the stokehold, with its boilers and storage of fuel. When he peered through his periscope at the disasterous loss of life and the mad scramble on board the ship, Captain Schwieger decided not to fire another torpedo into the Lusitania. Witnesses later stated, however, that they saw the submarine rise to the surface, raise the German flag, and had seen the Captain on deck for a few minutes before he submerged again and pointed his sub for home. The sinking of the Lusitania was a disaster and certainly pushed the world further into War in 1915. But that story also illustrates to us how important radio had become on the sea. And, with the two Marconi men -- Robbie Leith and David McCormick -- history shows us the direct connection between committed radio operators and the many lives they saved. Please join us in the attached discussion forum and suggest other interesting stories from the last 100+ years of radio history. 73 for now, Dave
Propagation.... TUESDAY EDITION: 14 of 17 weekends since June have rained, hope that doesn't happen this winter or I will need to park the old Case 530 in the driveway....WOOT has 4 Dell laptops on sale for less than 99 bucks, some for $79....
He can fix anything in that damn radio but can't fix the kitchen drain.... MONDAY EDITION: NE Patriots squeaked by this weekend, not exactly a powerhouse team...
Novel placement for an antenna.... Citizen scientists can join a ‘Ring of Fire’ eclipse radio experimentAs energy spews from the sun and travels to Earth, it will interact with a special layer in our atmosphere. Every year or two, the solar system lines up just right, with the moon casting a shadow over part of Earth’s surface and blocking out the sun—a solar eclipse. In 2017, people across the United States flocked to see the “Great American Total Eclipse”, which was the first one visible in the continental states since 1979. Now, eclipse chasers and citizen scientists across North America are getting ready for the next big events: an annular eclipse on October 14, 2023 and a total eclipse on April 8, 2024. This will be the last eclipse visible in the continental US until August 2045, more than two decades away. People love eclipses for the novelty—how cool it is to see the sun disappear in the day. But these phenomena are both showstoppers and opportunities: a group of radio astronomers and citizen scientists called Radio JOVE is aiming to capitalize on the upcoming eclipses for science, part of NASA’s “Helio Big Year.” Radio JOVE “initially started as an education and outreach project to help students, teachers, and the general public get involved in science,” explains project co-founder Chuck Higgins, an astronomer at Middle Tennessee State University. The project has been running since the late 1990s, when it began at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “We now focus on science and try to inspire people to become citizen scientists.” As its name suggests, Radio JOVE originally focused on the Jovian planet, Jupiter. “Serendipitously, it turns out that the same radio wavelengths we use for observing Jupiter are also useful for observing the sun,” says Thomas Ashcraft, a citizen scientist from New Mexico who has been observing with Radio JOVE since 2001. After the 2017 Great American Eclipse, its members became more involved with heliophysics, the study of the sun. As energy spews from the sun and travels to Earth, it interacts with our planet’s atmosphere; in particular, the sun’s rays create a layer of ionized particles, known as the ionosphere. Any radio waves coming from the sun have to pass through these particles above us. Communication technology takes advantage of this layer, bouncing radio waves off it to travel long distances. The ionosphere’s plasma changes a lot between day and night. When the sun shines on this layer, particles break into ions. When the sun is absent, those ions calm down. During eclipses, when most of the sun’s light is blocked, similar changes happen in the short term change. By measuring those fluctuations precisely with a fleet of amateur observers, Radio JOVE hopes to improve our understanding of the ionosphere. To do so, Radio JOVE is equipping citizen scientists across the country with small radio receivers and training them to observe radio waves from Earth’s ionosphere. The project offers some-assembly-required starter kits for around $200, and a whole team of experts and experienced observers are around to support new volunteers. [Related: The best US parks for eclipse chasers to see October’s annularity] Right now, they’re prepping participants for a full day of observing during the October annular eclipse. Project members are already gathering data to have a baseline of the sun’s influence on a normal day, which they’ll compare to the upcoming eclipse data. And this is only a small taste before the big event: next year’s total eclipse. “The 2023 annular eclipse will be used as a training, learning, and testing experience in an effort to achieve the highest quality data for the 2024 total eclipse,” Higgins wrote in a summary for an American Geophysical Union conference. Citizen science projects such as Radio JOVE not only collect valuable data, but they also involve a new crowd in NASA’s scientific community. Anyone interested in science can join in, and if Radio JOVE doesn’t suit your interests, NASA has a long list of other opportunities. For example, if you’re a ham radio operator, you can get involved with HamSCI, which also plans to observe the upcoming eclipse. “NASA’s Radio JOVE Citizen Science Project allows me to further explore my lifelong interest in astronomy,” said John Cox, a Radio JOVE citizen scientist from South Carolina, in a NASA press release. “A whole new portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is now open to me.”
WEEKEND EDITION: Gaston County resident Oscar Norris, also known by his call sign W4OXH, is turning 106 on Sept. 25. Norris is not only the oldest living amateur radio operator in North Carolina, but according to information from the American Radio Relay League he is also the oldest living operator in the United States....Riding with Biden is getting hard to watch.... Anna Gomez Confirmed to Federal Communications Commission (FCC)The US Senate confirmed Anna Gomez as the fifth commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission on September 7, 2023. Gomez thanked President Biden for the nomination and the Senate for her confirmation. "I am grateful for the opportunity to serve," she said in a statement on her LinkedIn page. Gomez is an attorney with decades of experience in domestic and international communications law and policy. She served for 12 years in various positions at the FCC, including Deputy Chief of the International Bureau and Senior Legal Advisor. She most recently served as a Senior Advisor for International Information and Communications Policy in the State Department's Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy, where she has been leading US preparations for the month-long World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 (WRC-23) that will commence on November 20 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Steve Lang will replace Gomez as head of the US delegation to WRC-2023. Lang is a longtime state department official serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Information and Communications Policy. Lang has been working closely with Gomez on US WRC-2023 delegation preparations. ARRL The National Association for Amateur Radio® has represented the interests of US radio amateurs in preparation for the conference, and ARRL Technical Relations Specialist Jon Siverling, WB3ERA, has been appointed to the US delegation for WRC-23. ARRL also actively supports the work of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU), which, as a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Radiocommunication Sector, participates in conference preparatory work and whose representatives will also attend WRC-23 by invitation as observers in an advisory capacity.
Never played CB but I notice this mag with the amateur radio section....1950-1960 Celebrating 50 Years of the ARRL FoundationThursday, September 21, 2023, marked 50 years since the ARRL Foundation was formed. As a partner with ARRL, the ARRL Foundation stewards philanthropic support for amateur radio through scholarships, club grants, and other programs to ensure a strong and vibrant future for the avocation. The total assets of the nonprofit entity measured nearly $8M at its most recent annual audit, but it grew from humble beginnings. In September 1973, several members of the ARRL Board of Directors worked to establish the charity. Larry Shima, W0PAN, was the Director of the ARRL Dakota Division at the time and did a lot of work to get the Foundation started. Shima is very pleased with the Foundation’s success, stating, “We started off with $1,000, and just look at it now!” Shima says the original intent was to support future generations of radio amateurs. At the time, space and satellite communications were cutting-edge, and they were the focus of ARRL Foundation activities, though scholarships were also high on the list. “I was thrilled when I got the recent issue of QST that had the photos of the scholarship recipients in it. That is exactly what it was intended to do; we wanted to provide scholarships for young people,” he said. Gifts from generous donors support The ARRL Foundation, but it also works to help other charitable groups extend their reach. In an address to donors delivered over the summer, ARRL Foundation President David Norris, K5UZ, highlighted a recent grant the Foundation received. “The recent support the Foundation has received from Amateur Radio Digital Communications, or ARDC, has been transformational. We have been able to dramatically increase the funding of scholarships through their generosity and are working through a program of club grants, where more than $500,000 was distributed to clubs looking to take on new projects or sustain their organizations – and to share their learning with others,” he told the crowd. Shima was just 35 when the ARRL Foundation was formed. He is the only surviving founding member of the Foundation Board. Fifty years later, he believes that hams who have done well in life have an obligation to support amateur radio by giving generously to ARRL and the ARRL Foundation. Ongoing financial support enables ARRL to promote and protect amateur radio while our Foundation supports the future generations of hams. That generous support will have a tangible reach. More than 100 scholarships, ranging from $500 to $25,000, will be awarded in 2024. Thank you to the many donors for making this work possible, and congratulations to the numerous scholarship recipients who have benefited from their generosity. FRIDAY EDITION: Another sunny one until the weekend brings in another batch of rain and wind, a fitting end to the summer we had.....
Who would guess the ISS has a maze of wires connected to the ham station aboard?
Amateur Radio
Newsline Report
THURSDAY EDITION: NEAR-Fest XXXIV, October 13 & 14, 2023, Deerfield, NH
From Tom
Perera W1TP: You
might enjoy a look
at the talk on
"Disappearing Ham
Radio History" that
I gave at the NE
ARRL 2023 conference
in Marlboro, MA. It
brings back some of
the good old days of
ham radio:
Here
is a great
resource.
HISTORY OF
THE HAMFEST
Trivia.... WEDNESDAY EDITION: Nice day and no ham news to report....yet The PL259, A Tale of WoeI'm one of those guys who buys premium silver plated PL259s and pays upwards of $5 a piece for them. While some amateurs might believe that my connector phobia borders on Barnum's "A sucker is born every minute", I think not, and I'll tell you why. It is my humble opinion the single most prevalent problem amateurs face is caused by the ubiquitous PL259. They typically are poorly or incorrectly soldered (if at all), the coax preparation is almost never done properly, and the material making up cheap PL259s easily corrodes or rusts adding insult to an already terse situation. These situations result in blaming all matter of station equipment and antennas rather than the real culprit; the PL259. So this treatise is an attempt to address the situation by making a few pertinent suggestions. First, there are a few do's and don'ts which need to be discussed aside from the quality issue of cheap PL259s. Never, ever use a soldering gun! Soldering guns have very little thermal mass and as soon as you touch the tip to a cold connector what little latent heat there is, is drawn away. While you're waiting for the material to get hot enough to melt the solder, the core is slowly but surely being damaged beyond use. Proper soldering of PL259s requires two soldering irons (more on this later). Never, ever cut coax with wire cutters! Doing so distorts the core and the center conductor making installation of the PL259 body rather difficult. If you don't have a proper cable cutter, a heavy-duty box cutter with a new blade is your best bet. Lay the coax on a scrap chunk of lumber and tap the box cutter through the coax with a small hammer. The cut needs to be clean and even. FULL STORY
MEANWHILE IN INDIA: Twelve IAS officers of 2022 batch, hailing from different states of the country, received training on handling ham radio at the BR Ambedkar Institute of Panchayats and Rural Development (BRAIRPD) at Kalyani in Nadia district on Sunday West Bengal Radio Club (WBRC), an organisation of ham radio enthusiasts in the state, conducted the training programme on the request of the institute that functions under the aegis of the state Panchayats and Rural Development (P&RD) department. According to Ambarish Nag Biswas, general secretary and custodian of WBRC, the IAS officers training was not similar to that of the WBCS officers, police or disaster management personnel, considering the fact that they will be at the helm of administrative affairs. The subject of the training was Scope Management. Issues like how connectivity can be developed through ham radio, how still pictures and video footage can be sent with the help of radio stations even if there is no internet, how can amateur radio establish contact in places where normal connectivity is a challenge were covered during the training. Previously, state police, teachers, Panchayat officials, state doctors and nurses and officers working in civil service received training in handling ham radio. The ham radio training is an integral part of the ongoing training of these bureaucrats at BRAIRPD that began on September 11. The training, particularly on Panchayat and rural development current situation and role of administration, will be held till September 22. TUESDAY EDITION: Looks like a stretch of sunny weather here on Cape Ann....
KO4QXD-Carol L Clay-USA BIO: I tested for both my Technician and General License (both on the same day) the end of May 2021... prior to this, I had been tagging along with my OM (KI4OGK) doing QRP transmissions with POTA and SOTA in the parks around where we live. We use an ICOM 705 for QRP (bought the backpack which goes with it), as well as building our own portable antennas to take with us, load everything into the saddlebags of the motorcycles and off we go! We also use an Elecraft K2 and a Tentec Scout 555 for above QRP mobile operations. At the QTH we use an ICOM 7300 and an ICOM 746 Pro with a Dentron Amplifier for more power. For antennas, we prefer to build our own for QRP operations. At the QTH we have a combination of both homebrew antennas and commercial beams. I've been a Medic in the Army for the past 18 years, and I met Eddie in Afghanistan in 2009. We are both competitive shooters and reload our own precision rounds, which is actually something I learned from my Dad when I was young, both shooting and reloading. We are members of a Sportsman's Club (private Range) and enjoy going out and burning rounds, (when ammunition costs are not so high!) My grandfather had enlisted into the Army Air Corps and was a Radio Operator on a B-17 during WWII and successfully completed his 25 missions prior to the D-Day Invasions into Europe. So radio is in my blood! Long wave radio fans mourn fading frequenciesSTORY: As he turned the dial gently but purposefully, the sound of people speaking in foreign languages and the lilt of unfamiliar music burst through a haze of crackle and buzz. Clint Gouveia was only about seven years old at the time, listening to long wave radio in bed, late at night. "I could hear all these voices from far away," he recalls. "It inspired me to want to see the world when I got older, to travel, which eventually I did." Back then, in the late 1970s, there were dozens of long wave stations broadcasting. Now, only a handful are left. Among them are those in Denmark and Iceland - but they are due to shut by the end of 2023 and during 2024, respectively. K1DPM ObitRichard Small, 78 years of age, of Parrish, Fla., share his sudden passing on May 2, 2023. He was a past resident of South Portland and Old Orchard Beach. Rick, Richard, Dick or Dicky was a beloved father, husband, grandfather, and friend. Rick was born Nov. 20, 1944 to Gerald and Thelma Russell Small. He was raised in South Portland and spent many summers in Milbridge with his grandparents. He served in the United States Air Force from 1965-1969 stationed in Thailand and retiring with the rank of Sargent. After graduating from the University of Maine with a BS in Accounting in 1972, he started his career in finance. He held positions as Senior Auditor at Price, Waterhouse, Coopers in New York, NY; General Manager of El-Jay, Inc., a division of Raytheon Company in Eugene, Ore.; VP Finance of N.A. Taylor, Gloversville, NY; and CEO/Founder of Medex Management Corporation, Yarmouth, Maine. In retirement, he completed his Masters of Aeronautical Science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with a 4.0; and worked as a Business Development Manager at Aging Excellence in Saco, Maine; and as an Instructor at Portland Adult Education. He also served in the Volunteer Ambassador Program in the Emergency Department at Maine Medical Center for many years and was involved with the Chamber of Commerce in Saco and Eugene, Ore. He loved flying and was an FAA private pilot maintaining his license until his passing. He was once escorted by FBI aircraft to the nearest airfield after breaching President Bush’s airspace in Kennebunkport. Rick was a Ham radio operator for over 60 years beginning in his young teens. The infamous Suckbag Radio, call sign K1DPM, was well known by the FAA and other radio frequencies. The laughs and the stories were endless and hilarious with Ricky, Jeff, Warren, Dud, Ken, Brian and many others. He loved his cars and took meticulous care of them to include Porsche, Mustang, Audi, BMW and his latest Mazda Miata MX-5. Rick was a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment and an avid shooter. He loved all animals, especially dogs, and had many throughout the years. He leaves behind his beloved dog Lexi who misses him every minute of every day and his beautiful cat Annabelle. Rick loved to travel visiting Hawaii six times, Italy several times, and most of the Caribbean Islands. Rick had a great sense of humor and never-ending support and love for his family. Many people shared “he was the smartest person I ever knew”. He was predeceased by his parents and best friends, Bob Hanson and Ricky Dennison, whom he dearly missed. The three of them have not stopped laughing since he arrived in Heaven. He is very sadly missed every day by his wife and best friend Lisa (Stevens); his beloved daughter Julie and son-in-law Chris, and grandchildren Allison and Jack; Lisa’s daughter Lindsay and grandchildren, David and Raven; Lisa’s son Nicholas and daughter-in-law Cassey; sisters-in-law Deborah Delp and Katie Lord, brothers-in-law Ben, Matthew and Jason Stevens; and many cousins and extended family.
MONDAY MORNING: Let's see, Deerfield hamfest is on the way, the big one in New England. It just has a comfortable old time radio feel to it, great time to run into hams you know on and off the airwaves.....Mike exposes an Unun. Tommy renews his FCC License step by step. Emile hits the Pi Bullseye. Announcing our 18th Anniversary Contest with an Icom IC-705 and a package of great accessories from MFJ. Contest details are available at https://amateurlogic.tv/contest.....Amateur Radio Enthusiast Appeared to Accidentally Overhear US Pilots Training for Raid on North Korean ‘VIP’ in 2017: Report Bowman students chat with an astronaut
The International Space Station may be many miles away, but for Bowman Middle School students, it was closer than ever during the county’s second “Ask an Astronaut” event on Aug. 28. The event was at Harris Middle last October and was with astronaut Robert Hines. Through Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, this year’s students had a question-and-answer session with astronaut Steve Bowen. Students picked his brain about life as an astronaut, what inspired his career choice, his taste in science fiction movies and more. Students rotated through a list of more than a dozen questions and ended each question with the key phrase. “Over.” Gracie Peterson, Abel Rohr, Evan Payne, Anthony Rhinecker, Ashton Rohr, Beckett Thayer, Ethan Putman, Mario Martinez, Riley McCourry, Brayden Gillespie, Mayce Woody, Jocelyn Moody, Kaylee Adamo, Kevin Myrick, Carson Vess, Autumn Buchanan, Abbi Street, Mason McKinney, Kinlee Young, Rylie Parker and Ali Young asked questions or were otherwise involved. Participating faculty and staff included principal Amber Young, Dan Hopson, Zeb Sturgill, Lincoln Masters, Samantha Kirk, Eddie Silvers, Shana Cook, Britney McKinney and Barbara Douglas. U.S. Representative Virginia Foxx was also in attendance along with Bob Koepke of ARISS, Marvin Hoffman and Max Hopper of NC ARRL, Brannon Young and Tammy Hopson. Prior to speaking with Bowen, students and faculty reflected on their journey to the day and what went into the preparation. Students also viewed a video featuring astronaut Tim Peake. Dan Hopson, a local STEM teacher, was once again instrumental in setting up the talk. When he did so with Hines at Harris last year, the local middle school became the only one in the state to receive an invitation— only roughly two dozen nationwide get an invitation each year. Competition to land a chance to talk to an astronaut is fierce, but through Hopson’s diligence and copious paperwork, it became a reality for Bowman this year, as it did Harris last year. ARISS lets students worldwide experience the excitement of talking to International Space Station crew members, inspiring them to pursue interests in STEM careers.
Xiegu New product IntroductionIt is a new generation of ultra-portable shortwave transceiver. It adopts advanced RF direct sampling architecture and is equipped with powerful baseband and RF units. It integrates rich functions of major models and has built-in popular remote network control function. [B]ringing you a new amateur radio experience.
Hurricane Lee: Radio Amateurs and Nets ActivatedHurricane Lee is expected to impact portions of New England in the Northeastern United States and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in Canada. The storm has had the full attention of forecasters and the volunteer organizations that coordinate Amateur Radio response to hurricanes. Amateur Radio Emergency Service®(ARES®) volunteer groups are in an elevated state of readiness and alert ahead of the storm. ARRL Sections in the areas forecast to be impacted have activated. Section Manager of the ARRL Maine Section Phil Duggan, N1EP, sent an email to members in the section on Thursday encouraging them to ready their stations and homes. “Because of all the rain we have been getting, the likelihood of trees toppling is increased and most likely power outages,” he wrote. Duggan said the Washington County ARES group would be on the air starting Friday. Portions of Eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island have been dealing with flooding rain and tornadoes over the past week. Other areas of New England have had amateur radio activations throughout the week. Section Emergency Coordinator of the ARRL Eastern Massachusetts Section Rob Macedo, KD1CY, who also serves as SKYWARN Coordinator for the National Weather Service Boston/Norton (MA) office and as Operations Manager for the Hurricane VoIP Net says formal activations are planned of the SKYWARN program. “We will support Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency efforts via the SKYWARN mission giving situational awareness and disaster intelligence information on storm damage, coastal flooding, any flooding from heavy rainfall and rain gauge reports,” he said. The Hurricane Watch Net (HWN) is planning to activate on Saturday morning at 8:00 am EST on on 14.325 MHz (USB). HWN will activate on 7.268 MHz (LSB) at 9:00 AM EDT (1300 UTC) or after the Waterway Net concludes, whichever occurs first. Net Manager
Bobby Graves,
KB5HAV, says the
storm still has
a lot of
uncertainty.
“Over the past
couple of days,
the forecast
track and
intensity have
been changing,
so it is hard to
know for sure if
Lee will be a
Hurricane at
landfall.
Regardless, as
with any
landfalling
tropical
cyclone, there
is a strong
potential for
flooding, flash
flooding, storm
surge, damaging
wind, and
spin-up
tornados. Unlike
other regions of
the US where it
has been
extremely dry,
the New England
States, New
Brunswick, and
Nova Scotia have
been very
unseasonably
wet. The
saturated soil
will allow
flooding, flash
flooding, and
for strong winds
to push over
trees and power
poles, so,
widespread power
outages can be
expected,” said
Graves. The WX4NHC station at the National Hurricane Center will be active on the HWN frequencies and also on the Hurricane VoIP Net. The station will also be monitoring WinLink reports via wx4nhc@winlink.org (subject line must contain //WL2K). An online reporting form is also available. Link: https://w4ehw.fiu.edu/WX-form1.php As ARRL Field Organization leaders begin activating volunteers, radio amateurs are encouraged to prepare their stations with the ARES go kit checklist. Amateur Radio Serves in Large Utah Bike RaceOn September 9, 2023, the Bridgerland Amateur Radio Club (BARC) in northern Utah provided amateur radio communications support during LoToJa, the longest 1-day USA Cycling (USAC)-sanctioned bicycle race in America. The LoToJa course consists of 200 miles of rough, mountainous terrain. BARC was prepared for the challenge and had been training and working on their communications plans for more than 3 decades. The club's involvement with LoToJa began in 1991, when the race had 200 riders and 14 amateur radio operators. This year's event had 1,700 riders and 120 amateur radio operators, including 35 cars with amateur radio operators along for the ride. Amateur radio was engaged in every aspect of the race from start to finish thanks to assistance of operators from Ogden, Davis County, and Salt Lake City, as well as Idaho, Wyoming, and Maryland. Section Manager of the ARRL Utah Section Pat Malan, N7PAT, said that BARC members evaluate their operating skills and equipment, which is the best form of preparation for emergency communications. "It's a tremendous effort and dedication from everyone," Malan said. Youth Coordinator for the ARRL Utah Section and former BARC President Kevin Reeve, N7RXE, said the teams deployed two mountaintop portable repeaters (using batteries and solar power), three portable digipeaters, and a portable IGate throughout the racecourse, in addition to setting up four command and net control centers. Reeve explained, "This provided continuous audio and an Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) for the 35 cars covering the entire event." Reeve went on to say that this year, a family needed to contact one of the riders because of an emergency. He stated, "There was no cell phone coverage, but we were able to locate the cyclist in about 5 minutes, then reunite them with their family in 15 minutes." BARC also provided emergency communications for at least two other large-scale cycling events this year, including the Little Red Riding Hood event that had 3,500 women cyclists and 70 ham radio operators, and the Cache Gran Fondo event that had 1,500 cyclists. BARC was founded in 1976 by Jeff Jacobsen, WA7MBL; Bob Wood, WA7MXZ, and Bill Neville, WA7KMF (SK), and it exists for the training and fellowship of amateur radio operators. The club currently has 227 members. 2023 SET Exercise to Test Skills and Emergency PreparednessThe ARRL Simulated Emergency Test (SET) is scheduled for October 7 - 8, 2023. The SET is ARRL's annual national emergency exercise designed to assess the skills and preparedness of Amateur Radio Emergency Service® (ARES®) volunteers, as well as those affiliated with other organizations involved in emergency and disaster responses. The SET is open to all radio amateurs and partner organizations, in addition to national, state, and local officials. Besides ARES volunteers, those active in the National Traffic System (NTS), Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES), National Weather Service's SKYWARN® Storm Spotter program, Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), and a variety of other allied groups and public service-oriented radio amateurs are needed to fulfill important roles in this nationwide exercise. During the exercise, volunteers can assess equipment, modes, and skills under simulated emergency conditions and scenarios. Individuals can use the time to update a go-kit for use during deployments and to ensure their home station's operational capability during an emergency or disaster. To get involved, contact your local ARRL Emergency Coordinator or Net Manager. SET guidelines and report forms can be found at: ARRL Simulated Emergency Test (SET) Guidelines+ In addition to the ARRL SET exercise, as part of their communications interoperability outreach to the amateur radio community, the US Department of Defense (DOD) will be conducting a DOD COMEX 23-4 exercise. During the week of October 16, they'll conduct a series of high-power HF information transmissions on 60 meters and channel 1 (5330.5 kHz). This event will coincide with the ARRL SET.
Amateur Radio
Newsline Report FRIDAY EDITION: Tropical storm watch, thank goodness my son took the boat out last week. It was one short boating season here on the island this summer, a lot more fun to live on a lake if you are a boater. No salt water to corrode everything, tides, waves daily, etc.....Saturday Sept 16: A ham radio station using the DSES club call sign, K0PRT (Plishner Radio Telescope), will be on HF and VHF radio bands. Using the big dish we will also be working Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) contacts on 1296 MHz -- hear your own voice bounced off the moon!....
Stupidity at its best here....a quick draw should get him in the leg if he is lucky...
DX news THURSDAY EDITION: I will be attempting to replace the battery in my Dell 5400 laptop later this morning, it's easy they say! We will see with these big mitts and reading glass eyes....Why Hooters hasn't opened up a delivery service called Knockers sounds like a missed business opportunity to me....Antenna disconnect idea ....
If you’ve ever thought about launching a high-altitude balloon, there’s much to consider. One of the things is how do you stream video down so that you — and others — can enjoy the fruits of your labor? You’ll find advice on that and more in a recent post from [scd31]. You’ll at least enjoy the real-time video recorded from the launch that you can see below. The video is encoded with a Raspberry Pi 4 using H264. The MPEG-TS stream feeds down using 70 cm ham radio gear. If you are interested in this sort of thing, software, including flight and ground code, is on the Internet. There is software for the Pi, an STM32, plus the packages you’ll need for the ground side. We love
high-altitude
balloons here at
Hackaday. San
Francisco High
Altitude
Ballooning
(SF-HAB) launched
a pair during
last year’s
Supercon,
which attendees
were able to
track online. We
don’t suggest
you try to put a
crew onboard,
but there’s a long
and dangerous
history of
people who did.
via Blog –
Hackaday https://hackaday.com/2023/09/11/balloon-eye-view-via-ham-radio/  Comparison of coax...
SUNNY WEDNESDAY EDITION: Early trip to the glass repair outfit to order a double pane window glass for my Anderson tilt and clean, the seal got broken by a rock I was trimming with the tractor, oops, $200.... Radio, electronics hobbyists set to converge on Three Sisters Park for weekend ‘hamfest’
CHILLICOTHE (25News Now) - An event hosted for more than 60 years is set to take place this coming weekend - at a new home. The Peoria Area Amateur Radio Club’s Midwest Superfest will bring in electronics hobbyists and amateur radio operators from around the region to Three Sisters Park on September 16 & 17, offering a trade show, flea market, educational forums and other activities of interest to ham radio operators and others wanting to know about the amateur radio hobby. According to a release, the club says amateur or ham radio operators use radio to communicate around the world and regularly provide communication service when phones, the internet and other systems fail in the aftermath of tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, or other natural disasters. More information on the hamfest can be found here. Mississippi hamsRIDGELAND, Miss. (WJTV) – You’ve probably hear that the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. Sometimes those toys started out as magic when they were kids, and for many, it’s still magic today. Under the tents at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Ridgeland on Saturday, groups of people gathered around various electronic devices. Talking into microphones or beeping Morris code or monitoring a computer screen or tracking satellites with a handheld antenna. These are amateur radio operators. Senior Pastor Joseph Wheat said the church yard has been turned over to them. “It’s a fascinating hobby because you’re just in touch with people all over the world,” said Wheat. Frank Howell is with the Jackson Amateur Radio Club and said they are a part of a small, worldwide activity. “And we are doing something called Churches on the Air, a program that began in1957 in merry old England,” Howell said. For Howell, his involvement in a day like this started way back when he was a kid, and his older brother broke the antenna off of his transistor radio. “I turned to on, I put my finger on the broken stub, and I was hearing everything. How did that magic happen! That was at eight years old, Walt. I’ve been hooked on the magic of radio waves ever since,” he said. Mike Duke fell under the trance of radio as a child after discovering a neighbor’s short-wave set. Duke became a ham operator when he was a teenager. It transported him way beyond the limitations of his room. “My dad said once, ‘It keeps him off the streets but gets him out of the house,'” said Duke. Mike McKay communicates with a computer. He has reached other computer hams in Finland, North Macedonia, France, Germany and Washington state. McKay discovered there is magic in the air early on his life. “From the time I was a little boy, I put together crystal radio sets and run a bare wire out my bedroom window,” he said. I don’t know what children are into today. Something with computers no doubt, but there can be magic in everything. And left to mature, it can take you places you’d have never imagine. SOGGY TUESDAY EDITION: Lot's of rain, nearby city got 11 inches in 5 hours....Today's Dub of the Day: Biden Commemorating 9/11 in Alaska Sparks Backlash, he must have forgot it happened in NY...Despite being robbed, vandalized and almost having their entire operation burned to the ground, the Cambridge Amateur Radio Club will not back down Focused on Mississippi: Amateur radio operatorsRIDGELAND, Miss. (WJTV) – You’ve probably hear that the difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. Sometimes those toys started out as magic when they were kids, and for many, it’s still magic today. Under the tents at Highlands Presbyterian Church in Ridgeland on Saturday, groups of people gathered around various electronic devices. Talking into microphones or beeping Morris code (must be a new digital mode) or monitoring a computer screen or tracking satellites with a handheld antenna. These are amateur radio operators. Senior Pastor Joseph Wheat said the church yard has been turned over to them. “It’s a fascinating hobby because you’re just in touch with people all over the world,” said Wheat. Frank Howell is with the Jackson Amateur Radio Club and said they are a part of a small, worldwide activity. For Howell, his involvement in a day like this started way back when he was a kid, and his older brother broke the antenna off of his transistor radio. “I turned to on, I put my finger on the broken stub, and I was hearing everything. How did that magic happen! That was at eight years old, Walt. I’ve been hooked on the magic of radio waves ever since,” he said. Mike Duke fell under the trance of radio as a child after discovering a neighbor’s short-wave set. Duke became a ham operator when he was a teenager. It transported him way beyond the limitations of his room. “And we are doing something called Churches on the Air, a program that began in1957 in merry old England,” Howell said. “My dad said once, ‘It keeps him off the streets but gets him out of the house,'” said Duke. Mike McKay communicates with a computer. He has reached other computer hams in Finland, North Macedonia, France, Germany and Washington state. McKay discovered there is magic in the air early on his life. “From the time I was a little boy, I put together crystal radio sets and run a bare wire out my bedroom window,” he said. I don’t know what children are into today. Something with computers no doubt, but there can be magic in everything. And left to mature, it can take you places you’d have never imagine.
The US military’s tiniest drone feels like it flew straight out of a sci-fi filmThe Black Hornet reconnoissance drone is minuscule and highly maneuverable—and even explored the collapsed parking garage in New York City in April. On April 18 in New York City, a parking garage in lower Manhattan collapsed, killing one person—the garage’s manager, Willis Moore. Much of the media coverage surrounding that event focused on a robotic dog that the New York City Fire Department used on the scene, a mechanical quadruped painted like a dalmatian and named Bergh. But another robot explored the collapsed structure that spring day—an exceptionally tiny and quiet drone flown by militaries that looks exactly like a little helicopter. It’s called the Black Hornet. It weighs less than 1.2 ounces, takes off from its operator’s hand, and streams back video to a screen so people can see what the drone sees and make decisions before approaching a structure that might have hostile forces or other hazards inside it. Here’s how this 6.6-inch-long drone works, what it’s like to fly it, and how it was used that April day following the deadly structural collapse.
Popular Science received a demonstration of the drone on August 10, and had the chance to fly it, in a space on the ground floor of a New York City hotel near Central Park. Rob Laskovich, a former Navy SEAL and the lead trainer for the Black Hornet with Teledyne FLIR, the company that makes the diminutive drone, explains that the drone’s low “noise signature” makes it virtually undetectable when it’s more than 10 feet away from people and 10 feet in the air. “It almost disappears,” he says. “And the size of this thing—it’s able to get into very tight corners.” Because it’s so quiet and so maneuverable, the itty bitty drone offers a way to gather information about what’s in a space up to a mile away or further and stream that video (at a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels) over encrypted radio link back to the base station. This latest version of the Black Hornet also doesn’t need access to GPS to fly, meaning it can operate inside a building or in other “GPS-denied” spaces. It carries no weapons. Popular Science received a demonstration of the drone on August 10, and had the chance to fly it, in a space on the ground floor of a New York City hotel near Central Park. Rob Laskovich, a former Navy SEAL and the lead trainer for the Black Hornet with Teledyne FLIR, the company that makes the diminutive drone, explains that the drone’s low “noise signature” makes it virtually undetectable when it’s more than 10 feet away from people and 10 feet in the air. “It almost disappears,” he says. “And the size of this thing—it’s able to get into very tight corners.” Because it’s so quiet and so maneuverable, the itty bitty drone offers a way to gather information about what’s in a space up to a mile away or further and stream that video (at a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels) over encrypted radio link back to the base station. This latest version of the Black Hornet also doesn’t need access to GPS to fly, meaning it can operate inside a building or in other “GPS-denied” spaces. It carries no weapons. Laskovich says this is the smallest drone in use by the US Department of Defense; Teledyne FLIR says that the US Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force have the drone on hand. Earlier this summer, the company announced that they were going to produce 1,000 of these itty bitty aircraft for the Norwegian Ministry of Defense, who would send them to Ukraine, adding to 300 that had already been sent. Skrocki notes that a kit of three drones and other equipment can cost “in the neighborhood of about $85,000.” Eventually Laskovich pilots the chopper back to him and grabs it out of the air from the bottom, as if he was a gentle King Kong grabbing a full-sized helicopter out of the sky, and uses the hand controller to turn it off. Kitchen confidentialThe demonstration that Laskovich had conducted was with a Black Hornet model that uses cameras to see the world like a typical camera sensor does. Then he demonstrates an aircraft that has thermal vision. (That’s different from night vision, by the way.) On the base station’s screen, the hot things the drone sees can be depicted in different ways: with white showing the hot spots, black showing the heat, or two different “fuse” modes, the second of which is highly colorful, with oranges and reds and purples. That one, with its bright colors, Laskovich calls “Predator mode,” he says, “because it looks like the old movie Predator. HAMS YOU MIGHT KNOW K1TP-
Jon....Editor of As The World
Turns....
SILENT KEYSSilet Key
KA1BXB-Don...Regular
on 3900 mornings....just
don't
mention
politics
to
him,
please!
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